106 Days
by keep-swinging
Summary: According to the tallies behind his bedpost, it's been ten days since he's been rescued. As he uncaps his black marker and makes it eleven, all that stares back at him is a shaky line. It doesn't feel like eleven. / Recovery fic, gen, Keith-centric, no pairings. Complete. P2/P2


~Author's Note~

Part Two is now here! I was trying to keep this at 4k to match with the other story but then that just didn't happen. For anybody new to this little two-parter series, I don't think it's super necessary to read the first fic to understand this one? But if you want more backstory definitely read 32 Days first before reading this one. To anyone returning for another serving of hurt-Keith, I hope you all enjoy!

As always, reviews are super appreciated! :)

 **Rated Teen** for mentions of PTSD, descriptions of injuries and some language.

 **Notes:** Sequel to _32 Days_.  
Keith-centric, team-bonding, gen fic, no pairings.

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 **106 DAYS**

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"Keith?"

Keith jumps at the sound of his name, but doesn't turn around. His shoulders hunch inwards and he holds his bowl of soup closer to his body, afraid it's about to be taken. He forgets where he is, forgets that nobody's going to take his soup here. Shiro enters the room slowly, taking in the darkness, taking in the figure huddled under the bed covers, taking in the shallow breathing.

"Hey Keith?" He says again, keeping his voice at it's natural volume. "It's Shiro. Can I turn on the light?" Something clicks in Keith's brain at the mention of the name, but he still doesn't move. Steam wafts off his chicken noodle soup, though all the chicken and noodles are gone and all that's left is the murky broth. The broth is the healthiest part, the part that makes you feel better; Keith doesn't understand why it has to taste so bad.

Shiro, after getting no direct response from Keith, sighs and reaches over blindly towards the wall for the control panel. It beeps when he finds it, and beeps another time when he glances over and hits the button that says 'LIGHT'. Keith's room is engulfed in a bright, neon glow and Shiro winces at the sudden brightness, Keith doing the same and pulling the blanket further over his head.

"Sorry bud," Shiro mumbles in apology as he finds the dimmer and brings the light down so that now it's like a barely-there nightlight. Enough for Shiro to see so he can walk over to the bed, and enough for Keith to bring the blanket off his head. The blue quilt settles around his crossed legs as Shiro takes a set next to him.

Keith's back is touching the wall, the front of him angled out towards the rest of the room. His soup is resting over-top his crisscrossing legs, spoon trembling between his fingers as he lifts it to his lips and takes another sip of his dinner.

"How are you feeling?" Shiro asks, leaning back against the right bedpost. He's sitting on the bed on a slant, half on the bed and half off, and his one leg dangles over the edge as the other is used as a resting place for his arms.

Keith shrugs as the spoon dips back down into the bowl, stealing another gathering of broth. "Not the best but not the worst either," Keith replies quietly, dumping out the broth and stirring his spoon around the bowl.

Shiro's silent for a few moments, but it's not an uncomfortable stretch of silence and Keith appreciates the fact that there's someone else in the room with him. Sometimes being alone is too much. No one really knows how to act around Keith, now. Either they give him too much space or not enough. There's no comfy in-between, yet, but that's only because they're all learning how in their own ways—just slowly.

"Keith I'm . . . "

Shiro's voice falters uncharacteristically and Keith lifts his head from the soup bowl when he notices. Shiro isn't looking at him, can't look at him, and a dull ache settles in Keith's chest. The Black Paladin looks so, so tired. There's worry lines etched into his face and the dark bags under his eyes are almost purple in color. If Keith didn't have the scars to prove it, Shiro could pass off that he was the one kidnapped and tortured.

"I'm so sorry, Keith," Shiro whispers, and Keith's already shaking his head because he's heard these words at least twenty times by now and he doesn't want to hear them anymore. "No, please, let me finish." Shiro says, and there's a tone to his voice that Keith doesn't recognize. Desperation?

"Okay," Keith answers shortly, blinking, giving Shiro his full attention.

The action tugs on Shiro's heart. The older Paladin takes a breath and then exhales, collecting himself, or struggling to at least. "I know you've heard this a million times already. I know you have. But I just can't—"

He breaks off, and there's water in his eyes and Keith's stuck staring wide-eyed, unsure of what to do. It takes Shiro a tick, but then the water's gone, the only evidence of any tears is a wet streak down his cheek, and Keith's fingers spasm because a hug would work, but he's not the touchy-feely type, but a hug would help heal them both and he's done it before and—

Suddenly, the soup's gone from his hands and placed on the floor, faster than Keith's drained reflexes can understand, then Shiro's moving over to the middle of the bed and wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling Keith to him. Keith flinches at first, Galra claws flashing before his eyes, but then he sees the metal of Shiro's arm and the white of his hair and the tear stain on his cheek and before Shiro can say anything else Keith's turning towards him and wrapping his arms around him as tightly as he can.

His head finds his shoulder as Shiro's arms lock around him and all Keith's tired brain can think is _I'm home_ as the tears escape. He doesn't sob, but he does cry, and Shiro's arms keep him grounded. "I thought we lost you, forever." Shiro murmurs, and Keith knows his tone is quiet so that he doesn't start bawling himself, "I thought we lost you. When Kolivan told us that he couldn't get a hold of you and what your mission was, we were all so scared that we'd find you dead."

Keith doesn't remember much from the rescue.

He remembers talking to Red, and then a muffled bang but that was about it. Apparently he had spent a full week in the cryo-pod, and it had done an amazing job with getting rid of all the little stuff. The big stuff, however, had stayed behind in the form of scars.

The hand-print on his chest had been reduced to just a barely-see able outline, soft pink on ghostly white, and the long gash on his arm was only a long line now—skin patched roughly to cover it, but he could live with that kind of scar. It looked like a badass battle scar and not one done by his own blade in a torture chamber.

The words over his bellybutton were the worse. The pod couldn't heal them as much as Keith would've liked. They're a dark red and readable as anything, and Keith hates them more than anything else in the universe. After he was released from the pod, he was nearly dog-piled by everyone, but Shiro and Allura had stopped it before it could happen. Just seeing everyone again had brought a huge grin to his face and he had welcomed a hug from each, one at a time. Then Hunk had made a huge, admittedly delicious, dinner for everyone to enjoy.

It had been 3 Days since that and Keith had been sticking to his room, hardly seeing anyone. That day he had only ran into Coran when he was making himself some soup, and had said as little as possible.

It wasn't that Keith was trying to keep a distance . . . it had just happened that way. There was something dark following him, shrouding him. He wasn't fully right yet, wasn't okay, and he wasn't sure if he'd ever go back to how we was before everything.

"We couldn't find you." Shiro's voice brings Keith back to the present.

"They kept the ship hidden. Jamming signals, counter-hacking Pidge, camouflage, changing locations every quintant so that every time we got close they were long gone. Anything you could think of, they did. We couldn't keep up." A shuddering exhale then, "We looked for you every tick. Every day. We just couldn't find you." Keith swallows past the lump that had formed in his throat.

He tightens his hold on Shiro, "But you did find me. You guys saved me."

Shiro pulls back from the hug gently, but keeps a hold of the younger Paladin. "I'm so glad you're okay," Shiro confesses, though it's not even a secret to begin with. Keith smiles, a watery laugh of disbelief leaving him.

"Me too."

They hug again, and Keith's body warms at the friendly contact. He hasn't felt like much of a human these past few days, but Shiro's arms wound securely around his cold body remind him that he'll feel right again someday. Someday soon.

The soup's cold now, the broth foggy.

Keith doesn't care, bundled up in his leader's (brother's) arms, he doesn't care at all.

* * *

"Keith!" The Paladin in question slows his pace, allowing Pidge to catch up with him. He was on his way back to his room for the evening but after passing by the common room, Keith had instead garnered the attention of Pidge. When she catches up to him she goes to reach out and grab at his wrist but seems to catch herself before doing so and as a replacement for the action decides to stands within his path instead.

Keith stops, raising an eyebrow.

 _What do you want?_ is scribbled in query across his face, but he doesn't voice it out loud. In front of him Pidge stands frozen, like as if he was Medusa and she'd just been glared into a statue by the snakes hiding in his hair.

Pidge hasn't gotten a good look at her teammate until now, actually, and Keith didn't look . . . good. Of course they'd all seen him around the Castle here and there, and nearly crushed him the tick after he was allowed out of his cryo-pod, but seeing him now, it was different. His appearance sent a troubled chill down her spine.

His dark hair was messier than it usually was before, pieces sticking up here and there, a particularly rebellious curl jutting out above his left ear. His eyes don't hold as much mirth as they used too, even then it was the smallest amount, but Pidge could always see it whenever Shiro praised him with a smile or Hunk slammed him on the back after a job well done.

Lance poking at his side at dinner (because somehow the two always ended up sitting next to each other despite the displeasure it brought them) and he never hid the twinkle in his eye when he was around her, that was for sure. Pidge wasn't sure if he just thought she didn't notice or if he really didn't feel like being bothered with acting like a grump; it was always there whenever she tried to teach him how to read Altean or Galran, and even if sometimes she explained too fast he would always keep up, never telling her to slow down or to repeat something.

Now though, it's unnerving how void his eyes are, how they hold no emotion— _nothing_ —and that mirth, that yearn to learn something more or do a good job, it's nonexistent.

Dark circles are underneath his eyes, making the two sockets look like nothing more than bottomless pits. He doesn't hold himself tall anymore either, his shoulders are arched in, his back crooked, more timid than bold.

What really throws Pidge through a loop, though, is how he _looks_. Keith was always lean with muscle, and he was never a huge, towering-over-you-guy with beefy shoulders and huge calves, but he was healthy enough that his shoulders filled the tee-shirts he wore easily. He was healthy enough that you could see the jagged curve of muscles flex in his back when he wore a too-tight shirt for training. He was healthy enough. He was.

She swears he was.

The first thought that raids Pidge's mind is a single word.

Malnourished.

Keith's malnourished. He's wearing casual clothes, clothes you'd wear around your house after deciding that it was going to be a lazy day. His usual _I'm a loner and I know it_ attire is gone, and Pidge doesn't know why that fact alone bugs her so much.

They're baggy around his body, the clothes. They're _too big_. The shoulders of the red tee-shirt are folding over and seem to swallow his actual shoulders—which are much smaller than they used to be. The rest of the shirt seems to float around his body, not holding anything in, mostly because there's nothing there to hold in. The hem comes down to mid-thigh.

The grey sweatpants covering his lower half are loose-fitting, burying him, and the bottoms have so much extra that he's walking over them in his Red Lion slippers. Having his hands pushed in his pockets showcase just how skinny his arms are, stretched so far, too far, wire-thin and as pale as the moon.

Pidge's the smallest person on the ship and the fact that she feels bigger than Keith, and possibly looks bigger too, scares her. It scares her a lot.

Keith—brave, valiant, resolute Keith—shouldn't look like this.

"Pidge? Everything . . . all right?"

Keith's concerned, if not exhausted, voice breaks her thoughts. Pidge scrambles for an answer, struggling to remember the whole reason she chased him down in the first place. What's racing through her mind now is nothing to be voiced.

"Yes. Yeah! Everything is great. Um," Pidge stumbles through her words as Keith leans on his side against the wall. "Hunk and I were just wondering if you would like to join us for movie night tonight? Hunk found a bunch of what looks to be pirated movies in Coran's room and we just thought a movie night would be a good idea."

Keith stares. Pidge can't read the expression on his face. Then there's a small smile crossing his mouth and Pidge finds herself smiling too.

"Yeah, let's do it."

Movie night is only a bust in the fact that the movie turns out to be about a cardboard monster and a pink alien with a mustache. It's in full Altean and when Pidge hits a button on the remote to show Keith and Hulk her latest invention, they're both in awe. It's basically subtitles for Altean, soon to become any alien language for any alien television in space, and they're a dull yellow as they float across the bottom of the screen.

Hunk pats her on the back and Keith grins, and soon the movie's starting and they all go mute. Keith ends up between the other two Paladins, Hulk on his left and Pidge on his right, and the large green-stripped popcorn bowl passes between all three of them.

Halfway through the movie there's a moment between the pink alien and cardboard monster that's supposed to be emotional because they used to be best friends and now one of them was evil—the cardboard monster of course—but it's really not as sad as it's scripted.

Hunk ends up crying, eyes welling up before he basically bawls and then he falls into Keith to hide his face from Pidge's guffawing. Keith had stiffened at first, body prickling and scars boiling, but then he reminds himself of where he is and that he's safe, he's safe, and after a few tense ticks he relaxes and pushes Hunk off him playfully with his usual scowl covering his face.

Hunk feels beyond betrayed. "Betrayal!" He yells, shoving a pudgy finger in Keith's direction, "It was sad!"

"Hunk they tried to kill each other after they said their 'I love you's! That's not sad. They're totally faking it."

"No they're not!"

They had bickered for a good dobosh, before Pidge had broken them up. "Alright, alright, alright cut it out! You're missing the movie! We'll see who's right at the end so both of you shut it so I can hear."

"Don't you mean see?" Keith asks bluntly, sounding so Keith-like that it makes Pidge fire back her own response.

"Well," she sputters, "obviously. But I still want to hear. They might say something important that the . . . subtitles don't catch?" The end of her sentence trails off uncertainly and Keith can't hold back his chuckle.

When Keith laughs, Hulk and Pidge stop moving. They look at each other before looking back at Keith with soft smiles and when the former Red Paladin feels them staring he glances over, turning his attention away from the movie.

"What?" He asks, as Hunk reaches over and takes a handful of popcorn from the bowl in Pidge's lap.

"Nothing man it's just—it's good to have you back."

"Really good," Pidge pipes in, resting her head lightly against his side. Hunk throws an arm around Keith and Keith—

Keith watches the movie, a warm feeling in his heart and an ever warmer feeling surrounding him.

When Coran and Allura stumble upon the three of them the next morning, Pidge against Keith's side, Hunk leaning on Keith and drooling against his shoulder, Keith's arm slung around Pidge protectively, and the television screen skipping on grey; the two Alteans share a earnest look and let them sleep.

* * *

Keith waits until it's late at night before writing the tallies. When the time comes it's nearly three in the morning, but he uncaps his marker and clambers to the front of the bed anyway, peeking behind the outermost bedpost.

Behind it are twenty-five tallies, drawn in black marker, straight and bold and too perfect. He exhales slowly as he draws another one. It's hard keeping the line as straight as the rest, too hard, too much. But he has to do it. His heart races until the tally's drawn, and after that he feels like he can breathe again. Leaning back, Keith carefully tucks the marker back on the thin ledge above his head, and his fingers feel cold once the marker's safely put away.

The blanket snagged around his waist brings a soothing warmth as he tosses to his side and folds his head against the pillow. He knows having an urge to tally the days is something to do with PTSD. He's not a stranger to the symptoms, nor the causes. The cryo-pod healed all his physical ailments, but Keith would have to overcome his mental ones.

Sleeping's hard.

He never has pleasant dreams. Not that he had too many nice ones before, but before he could at least sometimes fall asleep to a dream of his shack in the desert, or an image of his father's smiling face. Sometimes he would dream of Voltron and all the good they did that day, or even the green gobs of goo in the kitchen. Sometimes he would dream nice dreams. Now he can't.

They're always dark, his dreams.

Dark colors, dark places, dark faces.

The knifes are polished and the bonds are rough. Haggar's always there. Always watching, her purple skin shining from the shadows. His own screams echo, and his own blood covers the walls. The blood gushes, painting the walls. The brushes are the tools of torture.

He sleeps, but never in amity.

He sleeps, but never not terrified.

* * *

The Mice seem to understand what he's going through better than anyone else.

Whenever he's alone they scurry through the hallways until they find him and then make themselves right at home in wherever he's at. When he's hidden away in his room, the Mice have learned that he locks the door, so they use the vents and disrupt him by falling in a chaotic heap on the floor.

The yellow mouse, Big Yellow as Keith likes to call him, is always the first one down, a soft _thump_ sounding after his chubby butt hits the floor. The rest of the order is usually scrambled, but Keith notices that the tiny blue mouse is always last.

After their entry, they then evaluate what Keith's doing, and go off of that.

If he's cleaning his blade, they hop up on the bed beside him and watch, chittering away in their little mouse language that Keith doesn't understand. Sometimes they poke and prod at him when they get bored and he'll slash in their direction with his blade—a strict warning—until they settle down again, the game of avoiding becoming mouse stew enough entertainment for them.

If he's taking a nap, all four of them will snuggle up next to him.

Big Yellow stretched on his belly across his arm, Little Blue nestled against his forehead, Grey resting atop the bridge of his nose, and finally Pinkie cuddled in whatever open palm she can find. When Keith awakes with fur up his nose and his eyes watering he mutters about it loud enough to wake Grey and Little Blue who yawn and slide off him onto the bed sheets before resuming their own slumber.

Keith never moves the Mice himself. He's afraid of hurting their little limbs and he wouldn't dare harm a hair on their little heads. Big Yellow wakes up after a few less-than-sociable nudges to the stomach, and he always falls face first into Keith's pillow. Keith's extremely gentle with Pinkie, lifting her little body up by cupping both of his hands together and then depositing her next to Big Yellow on the pillow.

No matter what he's doing, the Mice stand by him.

When Keith wakes up to makes his tallies one night, he's surprised to find the Mice snuggled around him. They don't typically go to bed with him, but Keith doesn't mind. He reaches up as tentatively as he can and grabs the marker, popping off the cap and making another tally.

The forty-sixth tally squeaks as it's drawn, and the sound is loud enough to wake up Pinkie, who purrs and lifts her head from her spot on the bed. Keith puts the marker back and gets back under the covers, scooping Pinkie back up in his hands.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he addresses, rubbing at his eyes with his empty hand. Pinkie tilts her head, blinking owlishly at him. "I have to do the tallies, you know?" Pinkie butts her nose into his fingers and Keith smiles.

"I'm glad you understand," then his smile fades as he realizes that he's talking to a _mouse_ at _three in the morning_. "Listen to me, talking to a damn mouse in the middle of the night about my traumatic issues. I'm sorry." Pinkie falls backwards carelessly, burrowing herself in his hand and Keith holds her close to him, dozing off to her soft snores after a while.

Maybe it's not so crazy that the Mice understand what he's going through after all.

* * *

"Keith! It's nice to see you up and about. How are you feeling?"

Allura's cheery voice greets him from the moment he steps onto the deck, and his lips twitch as he walks over to his spot. It's Day 66. Things have been going well. When Keith looks back at her after sitting down he shrugs indifferently. She's messing with some buttons at the main controls, bright blue lit up all around her as her eyes dart from one splotch of blue to another.

"Pretty good."

Allura smiles, "That's great to hear."

Coran walks in then, holding a square-shaped device. "Allura I found it!" He sounds proud. "Now I had to look through every nook and cranny here but I found it." He passes the device off to the Princess and she thanks him as she loads it into the Castle. Coran doesn't notice Keith's in the room until he hears the typing from the other side of the room.

"Keith!" He calls as he walks over and drops a hand on his shoulder, "Good to see you my lad. What brings you up here?" Keith smiles then, clicking away at the keyboard.

"I just wanted to catch up on what's been going on here and what Voltron's been up to." Coran squeezes his shoulder gently, a sincere smile on his face.

"It's nice to see you up here." The hold on Keith's shoulder disappears, "Though you haven't missed much . . . " He launches into an explanation and Keith turns towards him once it starts, listening closely. Allura plugs in her two cents from the control console and Keith's glad he's there.

He's missed them a lot.

He's missed _this_ a lot.

* * *

Somebody scrubs off his tallies.

When Keith goes to make 88 Days into 89, he finds that all his previous marks are gone. The hand holding the marker shakes, and his breathing gets fast, too fast. Then he throws the maker down and leaves his room, storming into the common room with a distraught expression on his face. "Who did it?" He asks, voice not quite a yell but climbing there as his hands clench and unclench at his sides.

Allura and Coran are painstakingly absent from the room, but all the other Paladins are there, and each stares at Keith with their own version of confusion and worry. When no one replies, Keith takes a step forward and his eyes burn—from anger or tears he isn't sure—and a phantom pain in his right arm appears.

He risked his life getting that key, wasted countless hours sharpening it—how dare they take it away. How dare they take anything from him when he's got nothing left but the bruises on his body and the room he's locked in?

"The—the tallies," he stutters, "they're gone, someone scrubbed them _off_ and I—I—who did it?"

It's a relapse. It's a horrible, horrible relapse.

He was doing so well.

Shiro stands, always so proud and tall when he stands, and his eyes hold worry, so much worry. Keith takes a step back, even though Shiro hadn't made any attempts at moving forward. "Keith," he tries, voice low and firm, "no one went into your room."

Keith shakes his head, and a tear slips down his cheek. "No—no someone _did_ ," and they took his key too, his key's gone it's gone, "they're gone, the tallies are gone." Lance stands now too, his body lanky next to Shiro's.

"What tallies, Keith?" He asks flat-out, because none of them have any idea what tallies Keith's talking about.

Keith shakes his head, "The tallies. My tallies, how I—how I count the days. They're gone," he repeats, and his eyes burn some more and he knows it's not because of anger. Shiro and Lance share a glance, while Pidge and Hulk do the same. Pidge closes the laptop she was typing on with a soft click— _CRACK_ his-shoulder-his-shoulder-his-shoulder—that causes Keith to flinch. He backs up and Lance cautiously holds up a hand.

"Hey buddy, you're okay." He says, with a soft tone that doesn't match his personally, "You're okay."

"I'm—" Keith's voice chokes.

"It's okay," Lance says again as Shiro watches, and Keith's face falls.

" _The tallies_ ," he tries again, tone discreet. "They're _gone_ Lance, they're gone."

"I know buddy," Lance answers, taking a few steps forward. When Keith doesn't make any moves to retreat, Lance keeps going and by the time he reaches the other Paladin the tears running down his cheeks are glaringly evident. "It's okay," he whispers as he pulls him into a hug, " _you're_ okay."

They stay like that until Shiro places a hand on Keith's shoulder and offers to walk him back to his room, which Keith agrees to. Lance, Pidge and Hunk can do nothing but watch as they leave, and all of them feel a piece of their hearts go with them.

* * *

(It was the Mice. The Mice scrubbed the tallies away. The Mice understand.)

* * *

"Keith?"

Lance had been awoken by the sound of frantic knocking on his door. Opening the door had revealed an exhausted Keith standing there, hair sticking up in every which way, eyes hazy. Keith's not counting tallies anymore, not physically, anyway, but he knows it's the early morning of Day 105 and that he can't _sleep_.

Lance has to blink a few times before he understands what exactly is going on and his name comes out in a hoarse murmur as he rubs at one eye. "What's goin' on?" Keith fidgets in the doorway, and it isn't until then that Lance sees the tremble of his hands.

"I had a—"

He cuts himself off, shaking his head.

"No. Sorry. Sorry this is—this was stupid I'm sorry. I'll just—"

He goes to turn away and Lance lurches forwards, locking his hand on Keith's wrist. The action startles Keith and he pulls his wrist from the other boy's grasp. Lance looks immediately guilty. "Sorry I didn't mean to grab you without . . . just—stay. It's okay, it's fine."

Keith was getting better with contact. He was exceptionally better compared to when he had first gotten back, but was still jumpy with unexpected touches or hugs. Lance just caught him unprepared. Hesitating, Keith shifts on his feet.

Lance gestures inside his room, "I'm serious. Come on."

Keith enters then, shuffling into the room quietly. Lance taps on the light, dimming it so that it's barely noticeable, and then shuts the door. Keith stands awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands shoved into his sweatpants pockets, and doesn't move to sit on the bed until Lance sits down first and pats the spot beside him. They sit next to each other in silence for a few ticks, until Lance can't stand it anymore.

"Nightmare?"

Keith's eyes flutter open, and he clears his throat. "I was back there," he mumbles, picking at his left thumb, "and you guys didn't save me." Lance shifts and his knee bumps into Keith's by accident. He winces but Keith doesn't seem to care.

"We'd never leave you." He reassures and then, in an attempt to uplift the mood, a half-smirk appears and a chuckle emits from under his breath, "Hell if Shiro is _ever_ going to let you go on a solo mission ever again. You're definitely grounded from those. I mean, technically you were with the Blade when you got snatched, and it would've never happened with us, but you've officially activated Shiro's Dad Mode now. If you weren't apart of Voltron, I'm pretty sure he'd never let you leave the Castle again."

He's rambling, and inwardly Keith wonders why he choose to go to Lance over Shiro. His mind answers with a snappy _because his room is right next to yours and contrary to popular belief you trust him_ and the conversations over. Lance's grating voice continues chatting away in Keith's ear and he's only picking up bits and pieces of what he's saying, but he's being way too insensitive for Keith right now to deal.

He snaps.

"I know it's my fault that I got captured, Lance, you don't need to remind me," Keith barks angrily, but his sight stays directed at the ground. Lance shuts up, and Keith exhales loudly through his nose. "I'm sorry. I just, I don't need to be reminded that it was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault," Lance says quietly, shaking his head, "sorry, I'm being a jerk. Ignore me."

The corner of Keith's mouth twitches, "Always do."

"Hey!"

Pleasant conversation develops from there, the two talking about anything and everything besides Keith's torment. Eventually though, as all bad things do, the conversation circles back around, and then Keith can't breathe.

Lance had asked him about his time there and Keith had been fine, explaining the Galra methods, the rooms, but then he remembered his room, his door, the back of it—the tallies.

The tallies, the tallies, the tallies.

His right hand tics and then starts shaking and then his mouth clamps shut mid-story. Lance glances over and aches to reach out for him but knows he can't. "Keith, what's wrong?" He asks instead, and Keith looks over at him, eyes wild.

"I need to—"

His breath comes out in pants, voice strangled.

"I need to write them. The tallies. I need to write them."

Lance stiffens and his brain screams PTSD in neon red like a big, fat warning sign.

"You don't need to write them, Keith." He keeps his tone calm and low. "The tallies are holding you back from healing, buddy. If you write them and think about them, you're just gonna be back in that room. You're not in that room anymore."

Slowly, being sure that Keith can see every little movement, Lance reaches an arm out and wraps it around Keith's shoulders, pulling him to Lance in a sort of side-hug. Keith allows it and even goes as far as resting his head on Lance's shoulder, and his pounding heartbeat slows down. "You don't have to worry about the tallies anymore, Keith. You're home." Keith's nods, comforting Lance or himself the other Paladin doesn't quite know. "You're home, you're safe . . . you're okay."

Keith ends up dozing off on Lance's shoulder.

When Lance starts to get a cramp he gently jabs Keith in the side, causing him to stir. "Keith, buddy, you're killing my arm. You can stay, just stay on your side of the bed."

Keith grumbles something that sounds like, "No promises," and blindly fumbles his way to the end of the bed, curling himself into the corner by the wall. Lance sighs and climbs back under his blanket, keeping his body towards the outside of the bed so Keith has room on the inside.

Luckily for him, Keith's feet don't reach anywhere near his head because of his slightly curled position and Lance is sorry but if it was the other way around Keith would be spending the night on the floor. "Heads up," Lance says as he lobs his spare pillow at Keith's head and Keith mutters something else that Lance can't hear as it hits him but Keith takes it and places it under his head anyway.

"Thanks Lance," Keith mumbles then, more asleep then awake, and Lance smiles.

"Anytime buddy."

* * *

Today is Day 106.

Keith doesn't have to count the days anymore.

He's not okay. He's not sure he ever will be. But with his friends by his side, things were looking up. Seeing Shiro's smiling face every morning at breakfast reminded Keith to be strong, the scar across his nose reminding him that things got better because Shiro went through things too and now he was there, with them, alive and okay.

Pidge reminds him to be smart; to never give up. Keith always seems to be around whenever Matt and she are in the same room, and the two siblings are like clockwork—all bubbly smiles, bear-hugs and science gibberish whenever they're around each other, and Pidge never stops beaming.

Sometimes Keith has quiet dinners with Hunk. They're not all the time because the Team prefers to eat all together, Allura and Coran included, but sometimes Hunk and Keith sneak away to the kitchen and talk and eat. Hunk reminds him how to remember, and how to forget. Hunk loves telling stories about the past, about the Garrison, about their adventures. Sometimes he brushes on sensitive topics, but he takes them in stride and then continues on, stubbornly refusing to let any bad memories get in the way of his happy ones, and Keith enjoys those dinners very much.

Lance reminds him about family.

He talks about home, about Earth, a lot and when he talks about his family everyone on the Castle listens because the way he talks about them is just so pure and genuine that it makes them all forget that they're fighting a war. Lance reminds Keith that they're all a family, with their own inside jokes and looks and love, and Keith feels at home.

He's _home_.

It's Day 106.

And Keith doesn't tally it.


End file.
